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A homonym is a word that has the same Pronunciation or Spelling (or both) as another word, but a different meaning. DEFINITION Homonyms can be subdivided into:
Homonyms that are spelt ''and'' pronounced the same – such as ''mean'' (intend) and ''mean'' (average) – are both homophones ''and'' homographs. Some sources state that homonym meanings must be ''unrelated'' (rather than just different), or that the words must have a different origin. Thus ''read'' (present tense) and ''read'' (past tense) would not be homonyms. Heteronyms (also sometimes called '''heterophones''') are words that are spelled the same but have different pronunciations and meanings (in other words, they are homographs which differ in pronunciation). For example, the homographs ''desert'' (abandon) and ''desert'' (arid region) are heteronyms, but ''mean'' (intend) and ''mean'' (average) are not. In derivation, ''homonym'' means "same name", ''homophone'' means "same sound", ''homograph'' means "same writing", ''heteronym'' (somewhat confusingly) means "different name", and ''heterophone'' means "different sound". Significant variant interpretations include:
Homonym also has a specialised meaning in scientific nomenclature, see wiki-links below. Homograph is sometimes used in typography as a synonym for Homoglyph , and heteronym has a specialised meaning in poetry (see Heteronym (poetry) ). FURTHER EXAMPLES A further example of a homonym which is both a homophone and a homograph is ''fluke''. ''Fluke'' is a fish, as well as a Flatworm , the end parts of an Anchor , the fins on a Whale 's tail, and a stroke of Luck , all of which four separate Lexeme s with separate Etymologies , share the one form, ''fluke''. Similarly, a river ''bank'', a savings ''bank'', and a ''bank'' of switches share only a common spelling and pronunciation, but not meaning. The first homonyms that one learns in English are probably the homophones ''to'', ''too'', and ''two'', but the sentence "Too much to do in two days" would confuse no one. (Note, however, when read with a natural rhythm in many dialects, ''to'' has a Schwa and is not homophonous with ''too'' or ''two''.) ''There'', ''their'', and ''they're'' are familar examples, as are ''lead'' (the metal) and ''led'' (the verb Past Participle ). ''Moped'' (the motorized bicycle) and ''moped'' (the past tense of ''mope'') are examples of homographs; they are not homophones, because they are pronounced differently. In some accents, various sounds have Merged in that they are no longer distinctive, and thus words that differ only by those sounds in an accent that maintains the distinction (a Minimal Pair ) are homophonous in the accent with the merger. Some examples from English are ''pin'' and ''pen'' in many Southern American Accents , and ''merry'', ''marry'', and ''Mary'' in many western American accents. The pairs ''do'', ''due'' and ''forward'', ''foreword'' are homophonous in most American accents but not in most British accents. Similarly, the pairs ''talk'', ''torque'', and ''court'', ''caught'' are distinguished in Rhotic accents such as Scottish English and most dialects of American English, but are homophones in many non-rhotic accents such as British Received Pronunciation . In a New Zealand accent the word ''sex'' and ''six'' are often homophonous as are ''sextease'' and ''sixties''. Homophones are sometimes used in message encryption to increase the difficulty in cracking the decryption code. In this case the clear text is altered prior to being encrypted and the decrypting party substitutes the homophones for their true meaning after decrypting the message Many Pun s rely on homophones for their humor. Homograph disambiguation is critically important in Speech Synthesis , Natural Language Processing and other fields. See also Polysemy for a closely related idea. QUOTE :His death, which happen'd in his berth, :At forty-odd befell: :They went and told the sexton, and :The sexton toll'd the bell ::: Thomas Hood , "Faithless Sally Brown" SEE ALSO
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